Well done! You've really captured the feel of this type of work with the light, smoke, sparks and dust. I like the texture of the plates in the foreground of the first with the cooling globs of metal still glowing.
How are you protecting your camera? The feel here is from being right up close, I like it.

Well done! You've really captured the feel of this type of work with the light, smoke, sparks and dust. I like the texture of the plates in the foreground of the first with the cooling globs of metal still glowing.
How are you protecting your camera? The feel here is from being right up close, I like it.

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Thank you. I got a bit worried, when I felt grinder sparks raining on my head, I am not using any filters, so I could have damaged the lens coating quite easily with a hot spark. Fortunately no damage done...

Thank you. I have a few more shots of this engineering shop. Whilst I shot there, one of the welders said to his colleague "I know, what this man is up to. He will make a calendar for this company.." I think he had a great idea there, A2 would do just fine I guess....

The plates are probably Hardox or something the like, but the front edge and the teeth are often hard surfaced. But then, sometimes it's cheaper to use plain steel and get a new bucket every now and then. Using the expensive stuff pays if you have well trained female drivers only.

The buckets and bins are being re-conditioned periodically. The wear strips are supposed to wear rather than the structure of the bucket or bin. Once worn to a certain measurement they get gouged out and replaced. There are different types of bucket tips available, depending on the application of the machine.

I do not quite get the relevance of the operators gender. I thought the latest wisdom was, that all 50 odd genders are equal and the same...

I do not quite get the relevance of the operators gender. I thought the latest wisdom was, that all 50 odd genders are equal and the same...

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I only know of 2 genders and while they should be treated equally and given equal opportunities they are most certainly not the same. Just like women are a lot more likely to give birth to children than men, they are a lot less likely to damage heavy equipment than us whilst beeing a little more productive at the same time. That's a well known and well documented fact. Having all female drivers roughly means you need 8 istead of 10 loaders due to less down time and extended service life.

Anyway, hard surfacing looks like this:
There's not a whole lot of detail, because I took this OOC JPEG with the XP2 at 12800 ASA. You're looking down into a 3m diameter breaker-mixer feeder. This is heavy clay works machinery, it is one of many steps in clay conditioning for brick and/or tiles production. This particular machine is in Brasil. The upper two arms were removed for rebuilding and hard facing, the bottom one remained in the machine. That's why the hard facing seams are 5 to 7cm wide on the upper arms while they are only about 1 to 2cm on the bottom one. This hard facing was welded with endless 2mm cored wire @around 350A.

Was that shot taken before removing and rebuilding the upper arms? At the size and ISO, I find the level of detail impressive. Clay tends to force its way into any opening and then hydraulics your equipment to bits.

We had female tractor operators on a GPS levelling operation in a sugar estate on 375 - 450hp articulated tractors. It was a positive experience.

That was after the machine had been reassembled and adjusted, the weld spatter ground off the bottom wear plates, tools, welding gear, smoke suction, respiratory equipment, etc cleared and the machine had done a few revolutions by hand to make sure nothing touches the bottom or sides. After a few hours of use or before disassembly all surfaces are polished by the clay and shine like mirrors.